[Bldg-sim] Fwd: Sketchup <--> Demeter Feedback/Experience

[Malcolm Murray]

Hello Mr Caton and all on the BLDG-Sim mailing list,

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions regarding the Demeter tool and 
thanks for your continued use of the tool.

As my colleague Donald I Macdonald posted on the Bldg-Sim mailing list 
yesterday, we have now released a new version of our SketchUp plugin now 
called LiveEnergy as part of our Greenspace Live suite. The currently 
released version of the LiveEnergy is entitled LiveEnergy Modeller and 
allows for the import and export of gbXML files from Google SketchUp, 
which can then be used in a variety of tools such as our own LiveEnergy 
EPC tool and other energy analysis software. LiveEnergy Modeller does 
not currently have GBS enabled directly from the interface, but this is 
something we may introduce at a later date, we are also working on a 
version to work with TRNSYS (for more details see the paper recently 
presented at the Building Simulation 2009 conference: 
http://www.ibpsa.org/proceedings/BS2009/BS09_1389_1396.pdf).

We have also released training materials (including tutorial videos) on 
our website, and have set up a new discussion forum. These can all be 
accessed on our website at: *http://greenspacelive.com* where the tools 
can also be downloaded.

I will now address some of the feedback / issues highlighted in your email.

    * *Compatibility with other SketchUp plugins:* We have made some
      efforts in this latest version of the plugin to package the
      codebase more effectively, so that we shouldn't have as many
      issues with incompatibilites with other plugins. However, we would
      be grateful if any compatibility issues arising with other plugins
      could be reported on our forum so that we can be aware of them.
      There is also now an option to disable LiveEnergy Modeller from
      the Google Extensions manager (in the settings window) without
      uninstalling the plugin.
    * *Space Selection:* We have now introduced a "semi-automatic"
      method of selecting spaces. You can now use our "Select Space"
      tool to simply click on the floor surface of each space and then
      the enclosing walls should be automatically selected. Spaces are
      then confirmed by pressing the "Confirm Space" button. This also
      allows you to manually select which surfaces go into the space so
      that the user still has the same level of control as before. A
      "Find Spaces" command is an interesting idea and something we may
      include in a future version.
    * *Cube Interface Size:* Our new LiveEnergy interface has been
      cleaned up, and is no longer a 3D cube. The interface is also much
      smaller by default, but can be maximised when you need to get into
      the detailed user interface / construction libraries etc. Much of
      the emphasis when building a model is now on using SketchUp
      materials and tools to create the energy model, and not so much in
      the LiveEnergy interface.
    * *GBS Operation:* GBS operation has been disabled in this current
      version of LiveEnergy. The reason why it will no longer work with
      Demeter, is that the URLs for GBS have changed to Autodesk ones.
      We have not updated Demeter to account for this, as we have been
      concentrating on developing the new LiveEnergy Modeller.
    * *XML File Extension:  *This is has proved to be a challenge due to
      the SketchUp api, but is something we will develop.
    * *Installer Defaults to SketchUp 6:* The LiveEnergy installer now
      defaults to SketchUp 7.
    * *Geometry Problems in the gbXML:* The gbXML creation should now be
      significantly improved.
    * *Plane Up / Plane Down etc:* These options were designed to raise
      and lower the active section plane when assigning spaces to the
      internal surfaces etc. This has now been replaced by a single tool
      "Move Plane" that allows you to move the active plane up and down
      using the mouse without deselecting surfaces. The "Space
      Definition" window is no more (although there is a list of spaces
      in the "Building Envelope" window).
    * *Surface Definition:* This has now been replaced by a new system
      using the SketchUp materials pallette that we think is more
      intuitive and should be more familiar to SketchUp users - you now
      "paint" the surface type onto each surface. As a way of
      automatically doing this is something we can look into for a
      future version.

News and updates about our tools as well as support information etc can 
all be found on our new website at http://greenspacelive.com

All our tools are currently at an "alpha" stage of development, and are 
currently all available free of charge on this basis until the 31st of 
October 2009. Anyone can now sign up to our website and get access to 
our whole suite including LiveEnergy Modeller and LiveEnergy EPC. We 
would greatly appreciate your feedback regarding these tools.

I hope I have answered all your questions, but if you have any more 
enquiries please feel free to get in touch, or post an enquiry on our forum.

Best Regards and thanks for your interest,
Malcolm Murray

___________________
Malcolm Murray
PhD Student
Greenspace Research
UHI Millennium Institute
Lews Castle College
Stornoway,
Isle of Lewis
Scotland, UK



Donald Macritchie wrote:
>   
>>>> "Nick Caton" <ncaton at smithboucher.com> 02/09/2009 22:35 >>>
>>>>         
> Hello Dr. Finlayson,
>
>  
>
> For whatever reason, I'm having a lot of difficulty searching for
> answers to my Demeter inquries through google sketchup groups / bldg-sim
> archives / Demeter forums (are they even up?)... and it occurred to me
> there simply might not be much discussion out there to look for!  This
> email should go a long way to remedy that!
>
>  
>
> I have some feedback  for your team in the form of constructive
> criticism and issues I've had, along with a few related questions.
> Overall, I really like what I see so far, though I understand the
> project is still under development (the current version hosted on the
> website is 0.8.9.2, for anyone following along).  I'll throw out that my
> feedback is colored from the perspective I've gained after some
> successful experiences working with the free plugin from IES, which ties
> into their commercial energy modeling software packages in much the same
> way that Demeter is tied to Green Building Studio.  
>
>  
>
> I'm also copying this feedback to the [bldg-sim] mailing list to spark
> some further Demeter discussion/feedback and to request other end-users'
> workarounds/experiences for our collective benefit.  It's my hope that
> the IES VE-Ware sketchup plugin development team will also review these
> points as both tools have some key things to learn from each other...
> Any responses you've got addressing these points would be good to post
> on [bldg-sim] as well, I'd imagine.
>
>  
>
> Feedback/Issues encountered:
>
>  
>
> +             As you may be well aware, one cannot have the IES Sketchup
> plugin and the Demeter plugin installed at the same time without
> sketchup crashing at every startup.  While one might speculate that you
> two development teams might want that, being "competing" products (?), I
> think it would be appropriate to recognize that users like myself who
> might wish to explore Demeter/GBS vs. IES/IES-VEWare get annoyed when we
> have to uninstall/reinstall software to do our jobs.  Ideally I'd like
> both installed at the moment anyway - see my next point...
>
>  
>
> +             Something to note:  There is a real and interesting
> contrast in the manner of defining spaces between the IES and Demeter
> plugin.  Demeter's capability to "check contiguity" for enclosed
> volumes, and to highlight planes that are out-of-whack for ease in
> correcting the issue is wonderful.  The IES plugin's approach of "find
> spaces" on the other hand is MUCH less tedious than having to manually
> select every plane enclosing a space, without an opportunity to correct
> one's selection if you accidentally miss or include a stray plane.
> Ideally, I think both plugins ought to learn from each other and create
> a "find spaces" command that, perhaps with an option ticked, might
> perform that function while additionally subsequently highlighting any
> and all non-contiguous planes to the defined volumes.  Wouldn't life be
> grand? =)
>
>  
>
> +             The cube user interface is altogether nifty and
> functional.  One major improvement however, for those of us without
> large displays (Mine runs at 1280x1024), would be to have the option to
> have the interface "auto-hide" until one mouses-over the top of the
> window.  As it is the model interface window uses up half of my working
> space, making it kinda difficult to manipulate my model views to
> correctly select/de-select faces for defining the spaces.
>
>  
>
> +             I cannot get the "energy analyse" cube-face to operate
> correctly with GBS.  It gives me an error consistently telling me
> "Webserver Logon Failed."  Any thoughts?
>
>  
>
> +             (Nitpick) Whenever I export an xml file using the
> interface or plugin drop-down feature, the resulting file has no
> extension.  Adding .xml however allows GBS desktop to recognize the file
> for importing.
>
>  
>
> +             (Nitpick) The installer I have tries by default to install
> to a Google Sketchup 6 directory.  I'm using version 7 (this may be the
> root of some of my other issues).  It'd be nice/convenient if the
> installer could figure that out on its own what is the appropriate
> directory.
>
>  
>
> +             Once the exported .xml file is selected in the appropriate
> GBS desktop field, I cannot successfully complete a run.  Trying to view
> the model in VRML results in an error reading "geometry is not a field
> of Material."  I suspect incompatible versions of sketchup/GBS/Demeter
> is the root of this issue...?
>
>  
>
> +             Back to the UI:  The "Space Definition" face of the cube
> has three buttons whose function I have not been able to figure out, nor
> find documentation explaining their purpose.  Plane Up / Plane Down /
> Plane Tool.  If they are intended to be some alternative to manually
> selecting each face of a volume, that would be a step in the right
> direction for ease of use (see above).
>
>  
>
> +             Regarding the "Surface Definition" face of the cube...
> here I have to get more critical.  The first model I tried this out on
> has something like 600+ faces.  Your interface does not allow one to
> define more than one face at a time.  One should be able to first select
> and change an entire space's face properties as a group, and
> subsequently be able to select multiple faces at a time to change their
> properties.  I hate to sound partial to IES but it sure is nice that the
> IES plugin figures out what is a floor vs. a roof vs. an
> interior/exterior wall automatically (though to what degree of accuracy
> I've not ascertained)...  Something that both automatically guesses
> (with some accuracy) surface definitions, while allowing the end-user to
> easily review and edit those properties would be ideal for both plugins.
>
>  
>
> +             While I obviously am having trouble getting GBS to play
> nicely with Demeter, I'm very hopeful that a successfully created .inp
> file from GBS, originating from a Sketchup/Demeter model, will correctly
> and accurately be importable into eQuest, where a good number of us
> energy modelers get a lot of "post-preliminary-design-stage" work done.
> That would bridge a long-desired path I've had regarding establishing a
> workflow from Sketchup --> eQuest.  Previous mailing list postings have
> indicated this is a possibility, but as it stands with whatever
> combination of compatibility/end-user (me) issues exist, I've yet to see
> this pull through with my own eyes.  I hope GBS's ties with Autodesk's
> Ecotect product won't impair this possibility in the future.
>
>  
>
> +             On that note, could you clarify for myself and others the
> relationship that exists between the development teams for Demeter
> (Green Space Research) Green Building Studio, and Autodesk's Ecotect
> software?  To what extent might the goals of one group
> influence/restrict the others?
>
>  
>
> +             Is there a mailing list one can join to be notified
> if/when new versions of Demeter are developed?
>
>  
>
> I hope this feedback is useful to many, and would encourage other users
> of Sketchup/Demeter/IES/GBS to chime in with their thoughts and
> experiences!  
>
>  
>
> ~Nick
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> NICK CATON, E.I.T.
>
> PROJECT ENGINEER
>
> 25501 west valley parkway
>
> olathe ks 66061
>
> direct 913 344.0036
>
> fax 913 345.0617
>
> Check out our new web-site @ www.smithboucher.com 
>
>  
>
>   
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